What happens when you have to post something about your campus every morning?

Chase Chalker (that’s him with the camera) became the first editor-in-chief of Georgia Southern Student Media’s “Digital Division” in fall 2014. While our newspaper, The George-Anne, continued to post news content, the new division was charged with posting something about campus life every weekday by the time our readers pulled out their phones for lunchtime browsing.

Chase and his crew tackled the mission with gusto and before long had created The Circle, a home for not only daily stories and photos but also a lot of video. (If you’re following industry trends, you won’t be surprised to know that video won the most visits.)

Chase wrote a column about the effort for the Georgia College Press Association newsletter. His advice might be boiled down to: Keep it simple. Here’s a slightly revised version.

This will be a long message, so flag it to read later when you have a few minutes.

TL;DR? There’s a lot of good stuff going on in Student Media. While we’re all striving to do better in so many areas, it’s important to recognize where we’re making strong progress in engaging our audience.

Now, please indulge a little narrative of how I came to write this message.

This week’s day-long Federal Trade Commission discussion of native advertising set off another round of debate, so it’s a good time of another installment of tweets (many with links!) about the direction of advertising and the precious dollars it brings to news media, including college media. (Earlier installments: worries about mobile and some hopeful signs. )

Why does this matter for college media? As I reported in the earlier post on increasing digital revenue, Ryan Frank of the Emerald Media Group at the University of Oregon sums up the feeling about native advertising: ”Most people hate it. But banner ads aren’t working … we’ve got to do something.”

We’re in the home stretch of my posts drawn from my (obviously) voluminous notes from the National College Media Convention in New Orleans. After’s today’s post, I plan one more on new revenue streams outside of print and digital advertising.

When newspapers started confronting the new realities of advertising, their chiefs lamented they were trading “print dollars for digital dimes.” Then commodity ad rates online plummeted, and people started talking about “digital pennies.”

But we know we’ve got to turn those pennies into dollars (exactly when is a question for another day).

I hope my headline doesn’t over-promise. No one has figured this out. But some smart college media people are “figuring,” and I’m passing along some of their thoughts in notes form. Some of these points appeared in earlier “NOLA Notes” posts but bear repeating in this context.

Another in a series of posts drawn from notes taken at the National College Media Convention in New Orleans.

When the talk at the “Reinventing College Media” workshop in New Orleans turned to how much college students love entertainment news, The Daily Utah Chronicle General Manager Jake Sorensen said what I was thinking: “This is scary.”

Scary because most advisers and student editors live and breathe “hard” news. Hand over our front page to concert previews? Never!

But I was much less frightened after the day-long workshop. So here’s a brief summary and some thoughts of my own:

Another in a series of posts drawn from my notes at the National College Media Convention in New Orleans.

We’ve established that breaking local news is critical to your success as a digital news outlet on campus. But news isn’t “breaking” all the time (unless you’re an annoying click-baiter). So you need to do a lot more to be part of the daily digital diet of your prospective audience. This post is full of suggestions from several leaders in digital-first campus media.

First, two quotes to encourage any journalist worried about whether “social” is taking over “news.”

Another in a series of posts drawn from notes taken at the National College Media Convention in New Orleans.

“Meaningful, local, breaking news works. … Once you break it, you own the story. People keep coming back to you.” The words came from Ryan Frank, president of the Emerald Media Group (serving the University of Oregon), and I heard no disagreement from any of the digital-savvy college media folks in New Orleans.

This means jumping onto big news in a big hurry, but it also means re-thinking coverage of scheduled events, like SGA meetings and sports. If you’re looking for big-picture thinking on a digital-first structure, this earlier post is for you. These are some examples and tips:

You’ve figured out that the “right now” needs of your digital audience are not the same as the “read more in depth later” needs of your print audience. You’ve coached and cajoled. And if you’re like most college media editors and advisers, you seem a long way from your goal.

The biggest reason may be pretty simple. Your organization’s structure and culture are at odds with what you really want.

Ryan Frank, president/adviser at Emerald Media Group, said he had a moment of clarity when he considered the digital vs. print needs created by every University of Oregon football game. He realized that “the kid who worked 12 hours on gameday,” filing furiously and writing the digital game story (actually only part of the Emerald’s game coverage) was simply not going to thoughtfully write the smart follow-up for the Emerald’s Monday print product. Either she would think print-first and neglect the immediate online needs, or she’d be exhausted by the digital needs and file a print story that just shoveled what was already online.

“That was my light-bulb moment. The structure just doesn’t fit if digital journalism is a priority,” Frank said.

Top tip: Create a structure with two divisions: Print & digital. Builds accountability and ownership for the products. #NOLA13structure